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Lowville, 7f . Y. 



HISTORICAL NOTES 



OF THE 



SETTLEMENT ON NO. 4 

BROTVTST'S TK.A.CT, 

LEWIS COUNTY, K Y. 

WITH 

NOTICES OF THE EAELT SETTLEES. 



"J^eque semper aroum tendit Jipollo." 



ROBERTS, PRINTER, 60 GENES EE STREET . 

1864; 



)f^^O^», 



HISTORICAL NOTES 



OF THE 



LEWIS COUNTY, K Y. 



WITH 



NOTICES OF THE EARLY SETTLERS. 



'J^eque semper arcujTb tendit jfipollo 




The following ISTotes were cliiefiy prepared 
for the consideration of a Club formed with a 
view, in part, to the local history of Lewis 
County, and not for publication. 

Prond of its past, and solicitous of its future 
annals : To those living of the Early Settlers of 
the Blach River Country^ and the descendants of 
those dead, this Historical Brick from the hearth- 
stone of a well-known locality in that Country, 
is respectfully inscribed. 

Maktinsburgh, June 1, 1864. 

W. HUDSON STEPHENS. 



N-Q. 4 



CHAPTER I. 

K O U T E . 

From Mount Tahawus, (Marcy,) tlie Adirondac 
range — the Mountain Lake, and "Wilderness region 
of New York — slopes to Lake- Cliamplain and 
River St. Lawrence, on the E. and IST., and the 
Black River on the West. Upon the Western 
base, the locality of No. -i is situated. The dis- 
tance over Rail and Plank Road from Trenton 
Falls to Lowville is forty-one miles. It is a jour- 
ney thence of eighteen miles from Lowville. 



Passing the spot where the first settlers of Low- 
ville rested with their families on the first night of 
their settlement of the new township — 10th April, 
1798 ; the old swing-gate guarding the Black River 
flats, erected so long ago the records of its legal 
existence have died out from the Town book : the 
curvilinear road on the river bank, where negligence 
or town penury has sacrificed so many horses : the 
State swing-bridge over the River Improvement, 



e 

with its works of support and defense against the 
stream, and famous in recent State political strug- 
gles : the grove-surrounded residence of Commis- 
sioner Beach : the Church upon the plain of 
Watson, fixing the landscape from the West: 
the home of "Hunter" Higby — the volunteer at 
fiftj-five : — the solid brick school-house : the 
square-roofed residence of Ex-Sheriff Kirly, now 
the home of the Fenton: over sand deep, sand 
hard, — hill, level, and stream, beyond Crystal 
Lake, and across the famous Black Creek ; — we 
stop at Eobert Griffiths, the justice, hunter, and 
local preacher, with its chain-pump in front, and 
school-house opposite. It is the last school-house 
we shall find. 

An irregular, winding road, through woods for 
eight miles, and we emerge amid partially cleared 
lands, with here and there an apple and cherry 
tree in the grass plot of a deserted farm — into 
quite a "deserted village" — houses without tenants 
— barns wanting boards and crops — an abandoned 
school -house, windows out and door gone — into 
the cultivated clearing of No. 4. Beyond Chaun- 
CEY Smith's, on left, and the Champlain Eoad, 
extending eighty miles into the Wilderness, on 
right, the red house of Fenton, perched on brow 
of the hill, is approached by road leading down to 



Wetmore's, and through the lot to the landing on 
Beaver Lake.* 

Mountains covered with evergreen, huge, and 
stretching away into the distance — the indented 
lake with its islands, and beach crowded with fish- 
ing craft, and an occasional shanty — with the 
breeze wafting the dull, resonant sound of the 
waters at " the Falls," on the river below ; — who, 
fresh from the settled Valley of the Black Eiver, 
ever loses the impress from memory's tablet which 
this first view ever makes on the enraptured 
vision? How appropriate here the rejected verses 
of "Gray's Elegy:" 

How the sacred calm that breathes around, 
Bids every fierce, tumultuous passion cease ; 

In still, small accents, whispering from the ground, 
A grateful earnest of eternal peace. 

There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, 
By hands unseen are showers of violets found : 

The redbreast loves to build and warble there, 
And little footsteps lightly print the ground. 



* Francis, Wood, Salmon, Beaver Dam, and Crooked Lakes 
are easy of access from No. 4. Trout and Salmon are the prin- 
cipal fish— Deer Stalking frequent and successful—*' Floating,'^ 
in June — May and September, principal fishing. 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE FIRST FISHING PARTIES. 

To realize xTo. 4, is to seek and find rei:)Ose — 
exclusion and " without care " — from the treadmill 
of labor, the anxieties of politics, the perplexities 
of trafS-C, and from the chain-like task of a weary 
and overtaxed brain. Here, in the earlier annals 
of Levy'is County, Alexander W. Stow, I. "W. 
Bostwick, and others departed, sought convivial 
hours and glorious freedom. It is a place 

'* For all ye wretched mortals 

Aspiring to be rich ; 
And ye whose gilded coaches 

Have tumbled in the ditch." 

From the traditions about the camp fire, the 
reminiscences of other days, with characteristics of 
the actors, are easily gathered. 

Of the first jisJdng party to l^o. -i, (1818 or 19,) 
were, Cornelius Low,^ Heman Stickney,f Otis 

* Agent, with Bostwick. of his father, Nicholas Low of New 
York city, proprietor of Lowville, from 1818 to 1826. Was a 
brother of Mrs. Charles King, President of Columbia College. 
Died 1849. 

t Owned an oil mill on site of Willard's factory, Lowville ; 
-ee«-in-law of Ehud Stephens, who with Jonathan Rogers were 
first settlers of Lowville. 



9 

Whipple,* Charles Dayaii,f Eussell Parish,;]: Sam- 
uel Rogers, § with Thomas Puflferl as guide. 
They went with team as far as John Beach's, 
(seven miles east of Black River,) thence on foot, 
having Sam. Rogers' hor rowed horse with packages. 
The most noticeable incidents of this pioneer 
party, who camped at " Fish Hole," and fished at 
Beaver Falls, for eight days, early in June, was, 
the naming of the creek, at the Fish Hole, " Sun- 
day Creek J^ alike from their attachment to the 
name, and it being commemorative of the day of 
their camping there. The burning, at the camp 
fire, by Low, of both his boots, and improvising 
bark ones; and that Sam. lost his horse, which 
was found after an absence of three weeks. 

* Lowville merchant ; years before his death a resident of 
Utica. 

t Student of Bostwick and Low ; State Senator in 1S28, and 
President 'pro tern, of the same ; defeated by Silas Wright, Jr., 
1829, for Comptroller, in Legislative Caucus ; in Congress, 20th 
District, from 1831 to '33, and a member of Committee on Man- 
ufactures. 

I Graduate Yale College, 1813 5 Lawyer at Lowville ; Mem- 
ber of Constitutional Convention, 1846, from Lewis County. 
Died, 1855, at Lowville. 

§ Son of Capt. Rogers, of Lowville ; educated at Hamilton 
College 5 a lawyer. Married and died at New Orleans, 

II Native of Princetown, Mass.; settled in Watson about 1800 ; 
for many years the only settler. Died about 1836. A large 
family survived him, among them, Isaac, widely known as 
*' chapter and verse" minister of the M. E. Church. 



10 

The following year, Alex. W. Stow,* James 
T. Watson,f and Ziba Knox tried their luck at 
the locality for one week. 

* Native of Lowville ; removing from Lowville, he died, Sep- 
tember 14, 1854, at Milwaukee 5 Chief Justice of Wisconsin ; son 
of Judge Silas Stow, of Lowville, and brother of Horatio J. 
Stow, late of Erie County. 

t James Talcott Watson made the first attempt to settle these 
lands, (Watson,) and for many years was accustomed to spend 
his summers in the county, at Lowville. He was a man of fine 
education and affable manners, and in early life was a partner 
in the house of Thomas L. Smith & Co., East India Merchants, in 
which capacity he made a voyage to China. The death of a Miss 
Livingston, with whom he was engaged to be married, induced 
a mental aberration, which continued through life, being more 
aggravated in certain seasons of the year, while at others it was 
scarcely perceptible. In after life, the image of the loved aTid 
the lost often came back to his memory, like the sunbeam from 
a broken mirror, and in his waking reveries he was heard to 
speak of her as present in the spirit, and a confidant of his 
inmost thoughts. 

In his business transactions, Mr. Watson often evinced a 
caprice which was sometimes amusing, and always innocent. 
This was, by most persons, humored, as tending to prevent any 
unpleasant result, which opposition might at such times have 
upon him. In the summer of 1838, he undertook to cultivate 
an immense garden, chiefly of culinary vegetables, upon his 
farm in Watson ; beginning at a season, when, under the most 
favorable conditions, nothing could come to maturity, and 
insisting that he would be satisfied if the seeds only sprouted, as 
this would prove the capacity of his land. 

In his social intercourse Mr. Watson often evinced, in a high 
degree, many noble and manly qualities. With a lively fancy 
and ready command of language, he had the power of rendering 
himself eminently agreeable, while many of those who settled 
upon his tract, will bear witness that he possessed a kind and 
generous heart. But there were moments when the darkest 
melancholy settled upon him, utterly beyond relief from human 



11 

Its earlier reputation — it has one for purity, for 
peace, and innocent abandon — kindly cared for, 
has brought frequenters from a distance. Here the 
massive brain and keen perceptive which, as Chief 
Justice of the State,* pronounced the judicial fiat 
of its highest Court against legislation trenching 
on reserved privilege ; the legal giantf of the 
Fifth District, venerable and replete with learning, 
to whom the "hour" rule of the Court seems to 
have no reference ; and that fatherly Judge, labo- 
rious and faithful to the public hu^ness^X ^^^ could 
consent to stay in Lewis County over one week to 
discharge his functions, and others, § have been 
found refreshing their jaded intellectual powers, 
lulled by nature's kindest harmonies. Constable's 
"shanty," at No. 4, and their "Point," on Eac- 
quette Lake, forty miles beyond, and the names 
of ladies on the "Notched Tree," on top of Mt. 

sympathy ; and in one of these he ended his own life. He com- 
mitted suicide with a razor, in New York, January 29, 1839, at 
the age of 50 years. His estate was divided among thirty-nine 
first cousins on his father's side, and five on his mother's 5 and 
some of these shares were still further subdivided among nu- 
merous families. The sixty thousand acres, when divided, gave 
to a cousin's share over sixteen hundred acres, but some parcels 
amounted to but thirty-three acres. — HougK's Lewis County. 

* Comstock, of Syracuse. f B. Davis Noxon. | D. Pratt. 

§ P. H. Agan, Editor Syracuse Standard. " Club," Watertown ; 
Springfield, Mass., &c. 



12 

Emmons, (Blue Mountain,) eighty miles in the 
wilderness from Lowville, reveal who are frequent- 
ers of the attractive regions of the Adirondac ; 
while the annual return of a member of the Kew 
York Sportsman's Club,* throwing a line of one 
hundred and fifty feet, with reel, impresses its 
value to the Waltonian. 

* Judge Stevens, of Hoboken. 



CHAPTER III 



PRESENT SETTLEMENT. 



In 1822, a settlement was begun in the eastern border of the 

town, (Watson,) on No. 4, Brown's Tract, by Aaron Barber and 

— — Bunce. In 1826, Orrin Fenton settled, " and is still, with 

one exception, the only settler living in that part of the town." 

HougWs Lewis Co., '• Watson,''^ p. 225. 

This is the chronicle of the local historian of the 
settlement of this, one of the most interesting locali- 
ties in the County. Here Fenton and his "busy 
housewife " have lived for nearly forty years. 

" Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, 
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray : 
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life 
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way." 

His head is whitened with the snows of seventy- 
nine winters, 

" While years 
Have pushed his bride of the woods, with soft and inoffensive 

pace. 
Into the stilly twilight of her age." 

With an intimate knowledge of every locality 
within miles, the " runways " of deer, the " haunt " 
of bear and panther, and "resort" of game; the 
discoverer of lakes and streams, fish-holes, beaver 



14 

meadows, and windfalls; a faithful disciple of 
Walton — he has quietly pursued his gentle avoca- 
tions of the fisherman and hunter, remote from 
"busy haunts, and secluded beyond most men from 
the world, for above the average of life; relin- 
quishing them only when time's mutations, crossing 
his threshold, has removed his (fourteen) children 
to other scenes, and made sad havoc on his once 
athletic frame. For about eighteen years, two 
families, Smith- and Wetmore, have been his only 
neighbors. Without litigation — almost beyond all 
public duty or burdens, except the draft, (the call 
of war reaches every abode,) these families, with- 
out schools or ministration, have mingled the 
duties of the farm, and sports of the field and 
stream. As if to mock them of their happiness, 
the town elected Arettus Wetmore a constable, 
and imposed road duties upon another — but the 
process which the one carries, are as scarce as the 
civilized victims of written law, within the great 
area of nature which, with his unerring rifle, he 
so often traverses. 

* Qiauncey Smith, an old-school hunter, has keep for teams on 
the south branch of Beaver River, (on Champlain road,) eighteen 
miles east of No. 4, and is the only sojourner between No. 4 and 
Racquette. Visitors are also entertained by him at No. 4. 



CHAPTER TV. 

FIRST SETTLERS ON KO. 3 AND 4. 

But our concern is witli the past of this No. 
4 — its history, hopes, settlement, and people. The 
first settler in its vicinity is believed to have been 
Ephraim Craft, on the Champlain road, beyond 
No. 4, on this (west) side of Beaver River. 

One Lippincott first bought and lived one season 
at No. 4, in a stockade of upright sticks, between 
Francis and Beaver Lake. 

As in remote localities in new countries, induce- 
ments were offered to the earlier settlers. In the 
West, a free village lot, or water right; here, a 
farm of one hundred acres to the first ten settlers. 
Men yield to them to find, often, East and "West, 
the inducement is about all a pre-emptioner ever 
obtains. Following the ten pre-emptioners, set- 
tling around them, settlers came in shoals and 
schools. They presented as varied character of 
usefulness and merit as the fish abundant in their 
streams and lakes. The "old road" — now in dis- 
uetude, on No. 3, leading from Bush's Saw Mill, 
crossing Brm^t Creek three times, to Smith's — 
was the scene of early effort ; and there, upon its 



16 

busli-grown track, may still be seen the homes 
and hearthstones, eloquent in decay, around which 
trustful and hopeful childhood played and whiled 
away its "young hours," with their uncultivated 
gardens and orchards of ungathered fruit. 

Here Chester Douglass, of Leyden, and Koswell 
Chubb, settled, and here Chubb's wife died. The 
house and orchard of Eobert GrifS.ths, Sen'r, (in 
1884,) and where several of his boys were born — 
among them "William, lately drowned in the inlet 
of Tupper's Lake — is on the " old road," about two 
miles from No. 4. He removed to JSTo. 4, on to 
the now Chauncey Smith lot. 



CHAPTER Y. 

THE PRE-EMPTIONERS. 

The ten pre-emptioners are stated as follows : 

Aaron Barber, settled opposite and below Fen- 
ton's, now deceased. 

Benjamin Bunce — ^his shanty was on Fenton's 
lot, towards Beaver Lake, same side of road. 

William Chandler, settled on corner lot of 
Champlain Road — ^lives West. 

Levi Barber, settled where Fenton lived — of 
Stow's Square. 

Lorenzo Post, settled opposite Channcey Smith's 
— now deceased. 

Hezekiah Tiffany, settled below Smith's — died 
at Ko. 4, and buried near Wetmore. 

Ives B. Rich, settled 1823, resides in Wisconsin. 

John Grordon, whom Daniel Wilder bought out 
— now Wetmore's place. 

John Rettis, settled 1826, now of Lowville. 

Jabez Carter, settled' in February, 1825, on one 
hundred and two acres, under contract with Har- 
rischoff, to remain thereon four years, to clear six- 
teen acres, and build a house and barn — on which 
he was to receive, at the expiration of the fou 



18 

years, a deed of his "inducement." He removed 
therefrom in December, 1831, but not without 
giving the settlement the benefit of his varied 
skill and capacity, he having taught at N'o. 4 the 
first school, of about thirty-five scholars, at fifteen 
dollars per month, and boarded himself Engaged 
in the mercantile business and potash manufac- 
ture ; and established a still for expressing hem 
lock, balsam, and tamarac oils, of which he 
marketed a total of one hundred pounds. He 
also acted one year as superintendent of the com- 
mon school, of which he was the teacher, and 
trusted out as a permanent sinking fund, about 
$300 of his goods and groceries, for the general 
well-being of the infant settlement. He still re- 
tains, however, the fee of his one hundred and 
two acres, with its ninety cents yearly tax ; though 
his attention at the age of seventy-three, in public 
affairs, is engrossed in the manifold and multiplied 
duties of Liquor Commissioner of Lewis County, 
residino^ at Lowville. 

One Douglass succeeded him as teacher, re- 
moving West. 



CHAPTER YL 

SUBSEQUENT SETTLERS — FENTON'S PANTHER 
HUNT — ^RELIGIOUS INTEREST. 

Of the first shoal of settlers, endeavoring to fix: 
a permanent abode in the Wilderness, at No. 4, 
were : — Peter Wakefield, who settled on the 
now Smith place, about 1826 or 1827, which place 
was thereafter occupied by Wilbur Palmer ; Isaac 
Wetmore,* (about 1834,) the white slab of whose 
grave, (he died September 11, 1853,) is visible 
from the roadside, below Fenton's, and to draft 
whose will, L. C. Davenport, of the Lowville Bar, 
traveled twenty miles and back ; Orrin Fenton^ 
(son of Ebenezer,) born July 1, 1784, at Mansfield^. 
Conn,, successively a resident of Windsor, Conn., 
Champion, and Lowville, and who, losing his wife, 

Barber, by whom he had seven children — 

five now living — afterwards married, at Lowville, 
Lucy Weller, of Westfield, Mass., (of their three 
boys and two girls, four survive,) settled at No. 4, 
March 20, 1826. Of all these settlers, but Fenton 
remains, "a rude forefather of the hamlet." 

* Son of Reuben, of Spencertown, Columbia Co., N. Y. 



20 

One incident, illustrative of Fenton's early forest 
experience, must suffice. About 1835, Teuton set, 
about half a mile from Beaver Lake, and ten rods 
from the river of that name, a wolf trap secure 
by a chain to a sapling. On visiting his trap, he 
was somewhat surprised in not finding it, and by 
marks upon shrubs he traced it into a cedar swamp. 
Examining carefully, he discovered a " big track " 
therein, and arming himself with a club, advanced 
to a closer acquaintance with the possessor of the 
trap ; but finding on the bushes gray hair instead 
of black, he wisely concluded it was not a bear, 
but was a wolf, which he might dispatch with his 
club. While pursuing carefully the track, he 
looked forward where, crouched upon all fours, 
beside a log, lay, ten feet from him, a large pan- 
ther, with the lost trap on his fore foot. Fenton 
made for the other side of the log with his club, 
when the panther run from him some ten rods, 
bearing the trap. Concluding the jol), (with his 
club,) was a little larger thsiu. expected, he returned 
for his rifle, and returning with I. Wetmore, at 
forty rods overhauled the panther. Fenton fired 
at four rods, hitting him below the eye, but did 
not kill him. He jumped up and faced his adver- 
saries, growled, and savagely showed his "ivory," 
when a second shot by Fenton brought him down. 



21 

He weighed about two hundred pounds, and meas- 
ured nine feet from tip to tip. 

About 1882-35, there were about seventy-five 
settlers, and in 1842 a religious revival took place, 
at which Elder Blodget and others minis- 
tered, with about sixty converts. 



CHAPTER YIL 

AGENTS — DECAY OF SETTLEMENT — DAYAN'S BET — 
JAMES o'KANE. 

As one by one the pioneers removed for more 
inviting localities, new ones came in — a squatter 
upon the improvements of the last owner — re- 
mained a short period, and followed his predeces- 
sor. Upon some of the lots several in succession 
settled and then departed, as the clouds of disas- 
ter settled, and disappointed hope grew gloriously 
feeble. 

Hence, George Turner was found on the Chand- 
ler lot, and Henry Loomis, McBride, and Henry 
Davis, opposite Turner's lot, succeeded each other, 
while John Gordon and Brown located below 
Smith's, on same side. 

Bunce, whose house is still held together by the 
coherence of old carpentry, on " Old Road," be- 
came first a settler on the lot of Fenton's, and 
Chubb afterwards succeeded him as possessor for 
a season, of the coveted domain on No. 3. 

Of the residue of the settlers, temporary so- 
journers in that land of early promise, little is 
remembered. Where Grott and Burton "chopped '* 
north of Beaver River, the most distant effort — 



23 

" picket dutj against the wilderness " — is pointed 
out ; while Fletcher's chopping is a known local- 
ity on this side that river. Peter Wakefield's fam- 
ily was among the last who " dug out " from 'No. 
4, in 1847, to New Bremen. 

These settlers came in the palmy days when 
Grov. John Beown Francis figured as proprie- 
tor, and Charles Dayan^ John Beach^ and John B. 
Harrischoff were agents — for it required agents 
bustlipg with authority, to manage such posses- 
sions in those days. 

Of the new residents who from time to time 
made investment in the locality, I am not in- 
formed. On Champlain road, out from No. 4, 
half a mile beyond Craft's clearing, is the one hun- 
dred acres which was lost by George W. Bost- 
wick on a bet with Hon. Charles Day an, against a 
new saddle, on the political result of Lewis county 
in the memorable contest of 1844. The vote of the 
county having been given against! the " great com- 
moner," the lot was deeded in March, 1845. 

At Stillwater, eight miles from No. 4, is the 
grave of James O'Kane. The following appeared 
in the Northern Journal^ in Januar}^, 1858. 

Died, alone in his shanty, near the confluence of Twitchel 
Creek and Beaver River, (Stillwater,) Herkimer county, N. Y., 
on the first day of January, 1858, from cancer in the stomach, 
James O'Kane, aged about 70 years. 



24 



Deceased has lived alone in Ms shanty, where his lifeless re- 
mains were found, for about twelve years. From his position 
on his couch by the fire, his head and shoulders being gently 
elevated, and his hands quietly crossed upon his breast, his last 
hours and the departure of his spirit, were in harmony with the 
solitude around his forest home. An abundance of flour, cheese, 
butter, bread, potatoes, &c., were found in his shanty. He was 
a fisherman, trapper, and hunter ; said to be of fair education. 
A worn copy of the " Gospels," and a work on the " Piscatory 
Art." constituted his library. He owned several boats that 
plied, at command of hunting and fishing parties, upon the lakes, 
sometimes as far up as Albany Lake. From parties he was gen- 
erally the recipient of the leavings of "provisions and pota- 
tions," by which his larder was replenished. Many a sports- 
man will recall with delight his night spent beneath the protect- 
ing roof of " Jimmy." 

On the 5th inst., a party consisting of Elder Robinson, Ex- 
Sherifif Kirly, Jos. Garmon, William Glenn, E. Harvey, T. 
Kirly, F. Robinson, and A. Wetmore, buried his remains on a 
bluff overlooking the river, near the well-known shanty, a spot 
selected and formerly pointed out by " Jimmy " to Elder Rob- 
inson as the place of his repose. A rude wooden monument 
marks the head, and an oar the foot of his grave. He died 
alone. 

" Found dead and alone ! 
Nobody heard his last faint groan. 
Or knew when his sad heart ceased to beat ; 
No mourner lingered with tears or sighs. 
But the stars looked down with pitying eyes. 
And the chill winds passed with a wailing sound, 
O'er the lonely spot where his form was found. 

" Found dead and alone ! 
There was somebody near, somebody near. 
To claim the wanderer as his own. 
And find a home for the homeless here ; 
One, when every human door 
Is closed to his children, scorned and poor, 
Who opens the heavenly portals wide 5 
Ah 1 God was near when the wanderer died.'' 



CHAPTER YIIL 

SALE, AND REMOVAL OF FENTON. 

The period of selling out the old home, of re- 
moving from the wilderness world, which he had 
presided over so many years, approached. 

The writer, while at "Wetmore's, in August, 1862, 
was requested to act professionally, by the pro- 
posed purchaser of Fenton's occupation and rights, 
in drafting the necessary papers to effectuate a 
sale. Being the sole attorney in the vicinage, this 
rare and unexpected professional engagement in- 
duced a prompt attendance at Fenton's after din- 
ner on the day following, (Saturday.) Fenton and 
the purchaser having concluded their long con- 
sultation, and the old gentleman having occa-' 
sionally exchanged views with his "better half," 
still active in household duties, though stooping 
with age ; and John being called from the garden, 
to concur in, and approve the arrangements, the 
papers were in process of preparation for signature, 
when the original title deeds were deemed a 
proper muniment and guide on the occasion. The 
deed from Grovernor Francis and wife, produced 
after considerable delay, dated in 1826, was ac- 
knowledged before John Beach, Commissioner of 



26 

Deeds, and was discolored with age. Having 
never been of record, it was brought to the clerk's 
office, where they are supposed to know the signa- 
tures of commissioners who died about the time 
the clerk was born, and to record them as gen- 
uine ! 

The reluctance of the proprietor to dispose of 
his old home, and remove from his haunts and 
fishing groimds, was evident. It took an entire 
afternoon to "do the business," for which ample 
compensation was accorded by a ride out with 
John, who was going out the day following to 
Lowville. Fitting regard for the feelings of at- 
tachment and regret which age cherished at such 
an hour, was had by the purchaser, as one by one 
different articles of husbandry were mentioned to 
be included in the sale — mentioned oftentimes 
with a sigh, as again thought passed over the an- 
cient woods home — by refraining to remind him 
of the boats and craft with which he had so many 
times pursued his route over the lakes, and to fish- 
ing grounds, and which it had been agreed upon 
should pass with the lands. By reason of such 
omission, they were not mentioned in the written 
transfer to Losee B. Lewis, with possession, which 
he assumed on January 1, 1863, of the well known, 
stand and farm of Fenton, No. 4. 



27 

Fenton" — who sliall or can chronicle the expe- 
riences of his heart-life of forty years in the Wil- 
derness. In the memory of how many a laborer 
and wanderer is his cheerful, tidy home treasured, 
and the kindly attentions of his forest resort re- 
called with grateful recollections ! Amid such 
scenes of wild beauty, the genius of Wordsivorth 
was roused into active utterance of the melody of 
" a heart grown holier, as it traced the beauty of 
the world below." The silence and solitude of the 
northern forest, has had its charms for him. Who 
will say his heart's earlier aspirations have not 
been as effectually satisfied, in the solitudes of the 
uncultivated forest, as if he had moved amid the 
busy haunts of the crowded city ? This sports- 
man by land and stream, this forest farmer, looks 
back upon woodland scene and experience with 
sighs ! How true, that while hope writes the 
poetry of the boy, memory writes that of the man. 

Martinsburgh, February, 1863. 




3477-X25 -/ 
Lot 52 


















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